I had two WTF?! moments in this Japanese Mazda Capella ad with French actor and playboy Alain Delon. One of them is the corny scene set in France. The second is the Alain Delon lunging at the girl on the rollerskates. Let me explain!
You can watch the whole ad here:
What did we just observe in this Mazda Capella ad?
The first part is Alain Delon playing a father with four kids. The eldest son clearly wants to go fishing and his father responds in French “Bien sûr, fais-moi confiance”, that roughly translates to “Trust me, believe me”. The son exclaims “Vite! Vite!” which would translate to “Quick! Quick!” and then the father drives off in his Mazda Capella (or should it be 626 as we’re in France?) through Paris.
The Capella bears an old pre-1999 style French number plate. These plates featured regional numbers connected with Departments of France. In this case the plate ends in 92, which is Hauts-de-Seine that lies in Ile-de-France. This is the city centre of Paris! This means Alain Delon is supposed to portait a rich and posh person. Yeah, right…
Anyway, when they drive through the narrow streets of Paris, they observe a girl on rollerskates doing a pirouette. Alain Delon grins in a lunging way and then the Capella drives tightly through a corner. We learn the Capella shown is the Capella Extra. The ad ends with the slogan Mazda Weekend Party.
Conclusion
So what does this all mean? The Alain Delon is clearly playing a family man, but he’s with the kids without his wife. So did his wife just bumped him out of the house to take his responsibility and do something fun with the kids? Maybe he’s actually a divorced dad that has his obligatory daddy day with the kids? But this wasn’t common in the early 1980s and it would certainly be a bad thing to show on TV. Maybe the girl on the rollerskates was supposed to be their mother? But she’s too young to be their mother.
And we clearly see Alain Delon, being 48 years of age in 1983, lunging the girl with his hungry eyes. Maybe he wanted her to be included in the weekend party? He was known for being a playboy and having relationships with much younger women. This ad is just full of WTF?! and brings up many more questions…
Photo of Alain Delon with the Mazda Capella SG-X Extra found here.
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